“Marianne & Leonard: Words Of Love is a beautiful love story between Leonard Cohen and his Norwegian muse Marianne Ihlen. But it is also tragic.

Their love – the ending of which was immortalised in the Leonard Cohen song ‘So Long Marianne’ – began on the idyllic Greek island of Hydra in 1960. Leonard and Marianne were part of a bohemian community of foreign artists, writers and musicians. The film follows their relationship from the early days on Hydra. That was a self-exploratory time of ‘free love’ and open marriage. But, perhaps inevitably, their love evolved and changed when Leonard became a successful musician.

Director Nick Broomfield is renowned for his self-reflexive approach to documentary filmmaking. He often inserts himself into the story, to put the filmmaking process itself under scrutiny, and to explore the truths that are sometimes revealed when most directors stop filming. In Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, however, Broomfield’s contribution is more personal and vulnerable. It was on Hydra in 1968 that then aged 20, he first met Marianne Ihlen. Marianne introduced him to Leonard Cohen’s music and also encouraged Broomfield to make his first film.

“I was a rather lost 20 year-old looking for adventure and excitement when I visited the island of Hydra,” says Broomfield, who was studying law and political science at the time and had a much more straight-forward, respectable life planned out for him. But then he encountered Marianne Ihlen.

“It was rare to meet someone who was not only so beautiful, but who really listened to you, really cared about what you thought, and who also encouraged you to take risks,” he resumes. “She encouraged me to make films, to explore that, and – at a time where I was a bit lost and stuck and too scared to do anything – she had a beautiful way of pushing you towards what you really wanted.”

STORY OF ENDURING LOVE

Ihlen’s influence on creative people is well-documented here, and she is referred to as a muse by more than one person. But being a “muse” is quite a reductive label, usually defining a woman through her relationship with a more successful man. This issue is also thoughtfully addressed in Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love.

“The trouble with the name ‘the muse’ is that it’s very passive, when it was a real talent,” says Broomfield. “It wasn’t just supplying sandwiches and a nice environment and giving them a flower. She could look at a person, understand their passions and encourage them – in my case, to be a filmmaker, or encouraging Leonard to put his words to music, and that his voice wasn’t so bad. It was recognising the greatness in people, and encouraging them to actively pursue that avenue, even if they had self-doubt about their own talent. It wasn’t passive, it was much more active than the label of ‘muse’ implies.”

It’s his perspective on Ihlen that prompted Broomfield to put himself in the film – but in a more vulnerable way than we’ve come to expect. He’s not an in-control director here, but rather a man, plaintive, and grieving two influential people who died within three months of each other.

“I was so surprised when they both passed, particularly because Marianne was such a big part of my life,” says Broomfield. “I don’t think I had realised how much time had passed. In many ways, I regret not having done something sooner. I did feel exposed: there’s a diary-like quality to my contribution. I was reluctant to put in those pictures of myself and I didn’t want to intrude on their relationship. There’s a delicate balance and I decided the only way to make it work is if it would enhance their story, remembering what she told me about Leonard and their relationship, and providing another layer of perspective.”

Bloomfield, who also made 2017’s powerful Whitney: Can I Be Me? documentary, notes that choosing a subject who’s died comes with difficulties. but also offers an innate structure.

“There’s a finality to it, an innate storytelling mechanism of a beginning, a middle and an end,” Broomfield says. “And in this case particularly, we wouldn’t have got that remarkable end to their relationship, where Leonard really acknowledges their enduring love. It took Marianne being on her near-deathbed to get Leonard to address their connection in the way that he did. The film is really about enduring love, and the types of love that you can encounter in your life. I couldn’t have written that story any sooner.”

CRAZINESS OF MAKING FILMS

Having directed often controversial films about Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, serial killer Aileen Wuornos, Biggie and Tupac, and Sarah Palin, Broomfield’s career has been defined by digging into the untold and unseen stories – an approach that was honed on the difficult production of one of his first high-profile documentaries, in 1986.

“Joan Churchill and I were working on a disastrous film about Lily Tomlin, who was really impossible to work with and deeply insecure, and put a lot of restrictions on what she wanted us to do,” he reveals. “The film we ended up making really wasn’t any good, but she ended up suing us anyway. So I thought, ‘The next film I do, I’m going to put all those things in, because then you have a whole different perspective on the work’. It means people are often not that keen for you to make a film about them, but it’ll be a film that will last and be more defining.” This became his signature style, and his approach has since been embraced by acclaimed filmmakers like Louis Theroux, Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock and Jon Ronson.

“I wanted to re-invent the form of the medium I was working in,” Broomfield says, “rolling back the boundaries so one was commenting on the craziness of the world of making film. I wanted to look at the questions people didn’t want asked, and the difficulties they threw up when you were getting nearer the truth. The restrictions that people put on your work that is ultimately more telling about them. I wanted to zoom out, in a way, and expand the definition of the subject so it included process – and you can make a much more complicated statement.

“I had been close to losing my mind before that. I think sometimes, you need to be pushed to an extreme to try something different.”

•Marianne & Leonard: Words Of Love is in cinemas from July 26. See Music News for more.